CAN YOU REMEMBER 2009...?

When we're young, everything is different. Days are for playing. Nights are for dreaming. Time is a butterfly you cup in your hand. Danger is what your parents protect you from. Life seems forever. But it's not, and so at each year's end, we have memories....

Can you remember the day you heard there was no Santa? That was the day you began the prickly task of differentiating fantasy from reality. How well you've learned to accept the world as it is, without forgetting the world as it could be, is surely one of life's greatest lessons.

Can you remember the day you met that special teacher in your life, the one whose gifts he or she lived to share? That was the day you discovered knowledge is power, and sharing is power-squared. How effectively you've learned and shared ever since is what has helped define your character.

Can you remember the day you first met love? That was the day -- and the person -- that opened an entire new frontier to your life. One that has, ever since, meant the verdant valleys of joy mixed with the parched deserts of loss. How well you have learned to endure the deserts without missing the valleys stands at the core of your being.

Can you remember your first job? That was the day you understood the lesson of Eden, the proclamation that we must earn our bread by the sweat of our brow. However, one of the prophets added, "If we find a job we love, we will never have to work a day in our lives." How clearly we have learned that wisdom has surely shaped our lives.

Can you remember the day you first buried a loved one? Parent, mate, child, friend. That was the day you came to grips with the steel-cold fact that we do not have all the time in the world. Time is a fragile gift which must be spent with care. How wisely we have learned to value the gift is, of course, the ultimate lesson.

Happily, each new year we get a new chance to remember these things. Happy, hopeful 2010